


trompe l'oeil

by alpacas



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 14:51:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19231330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacas/pseuds/alpacas
Summary: Jester and Nott, after the dragon.





	trompe l'oeil

**Author's Note:**

> written (belatedly) for a prompt for jester and nott after the dragon fight! also, just, boy. do i love these girls.

None of the cabins have windows, so Jester had painted herself a few. Sunset scenes to look at from her cot when she gets bored, homesick, lonely: unable to sleep. She lies on her back, hands on her heart, and looks at her views. With the lantern light, and the ship’s rocking, it almost — almost — almost seems real.

 _Traveller_ , she thinks, and falters. Doesn’t know what to say. Then says that: _Traveller, I don’t know what to say right now._

She feels her heart. Her pulse through her fingers. The aching of bruises and cuts and bone. The numbness at the edges of her fingers and toes and tail; the numb empty feeling of her tummy, the numb feeling of electricity and dragon teeth.

_Traveller, I don’t get it. Did everyone else forget about me?_

She feels the mattress dip from phantom weight. Be calm now, he says. I didn’t forget you.

“But that’s not the problem,” she murmurs. Hands to her beating heart. Half-dead flowers in her fingers. In her hair. Crushed to dust. She sleeps. In starts.

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Fjord takes a deep breath and sits down across from her at the table. “Jester, I just wanted to say, I feel real shitty about — basically all of yesterday. If I hadn’t been going around touching stuff…”

“Everything’s fine, Fjord. Don’t be silly.”

“And — uh, then, y’know, the dragon shit coulda gone better too — and you know I feel bad about that, right?”

“Mmhmm. Don’t worry about it!”

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Beau slides up to her as they leave the ship, walk across the docks into town. “Hey, so, uhhh… like, I didn’t know when I touched the thingy I would just _go_ , so anyway, I felt kinda bad bailing on the fight just like that, and I know you got left behind and that sucked, so, uh, sorry.”

Jester stumbles a little; she’s concentrating on braiding back part of her hair as she walks. Beau puts a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “Thank you, Beau,” she says.

“You okay?”

“Of course!”

 

 

 

 

The next morning, Caduceus goes with her to see the bees, the hives, to taste the honey. “This is great,” he says.

“Yeah!” Jester is holding very still; she’s dabbed honey on her fingers, and they’re fuzzy with soft bumblebee bodies, crawling gently all over her hand. Her heart is racing: she does _not really_ want to be stung. But they’re so gentle.

Caduceus watches with a smile.

“And I’d like to apologize to you, too, Miss Jester,” he says.

She twitches her fingers. A bee takes off, lazily circles her palm.

“For not asking you sooner how you’re feeling. I thought you might want some time to process your own feelings. But I just want you to know that I’m here to help you with anything you might need.”

She shakes her hand gently. The bees all taking lazy flight. Moving slowly, carefully, she lifts her fingers and licks the honey.

“Thanks, Caduceus,” she says. “Oh! Look at those super nice flowers over there!” she points, and they go to gather.

 

 

 

That afternoon, they have a second, late lunch ashore. Fjord and Beau are talking about some news, the attack on the Empire by the Kryn. Some town called Felderwin. Fjord’s trying to figure out if Caleb and Beau want to go back to their homes and check on it; Beau kind of wants to, but isn’t really saying so.

Nott watches them talk, twisting her ring around on her finger. Jester sits next to her, watching. The ring’s just a little too loose, or Nott’s fingers are a little too skinny: it twists around and around and around. There’s a bloodstain, brown and dried, on the hem of her sleeve. On the bandages around her wrist.

When they head back to the ship, Jester trails Nott. Caleb stayed on the ship today, and she sees Nott scanning the deck anxiously. Looking for him.

“Hey, Nott,” Jester says, before Nott can find him and go away to do whatever they’re always doing together.

“Hmm? Yeah?”

“Ummm…”

They walk up the gangplank.

“You had some blood on your shirt, I saw. A little.”

“Huh?” Nott lifts one arm and then the other. “Oh. I think that’s been there a while.” She rubs at it.

“You can get it out with cold water.”

“Acids, too,” Nott says absently.

“Really?” Jester isn’t sure how that would work.

“Not like, _yaaaahhh, I’mma fuck you up_ acid,” Nott says, her teeth all poking through her smile. “acids like the chemical kind. Shouldn’t you know this as the cleric?”

“No! Who knows anything about _blood stains_ , gross,” but Jester is smiling too. She knocks Nott on the head because she’s exactly the right height for that kind of thing. “Hey, but really, is your shirt okay?”

“Uh-huh,” says Nott.

“Hey, anyway, I got you something today,” Jester says. She takes the flowers out of her pouch, the ones she picked with Caduceus. A bouquet really, slightly smushed, two dozen yellow wildflowers. “They’re like, really popular with bees? And make really great honey? But also they’re cute and fresher than the ones you have.”

Nott hesitates in that weird way she does, her yellow eyes big and shy. “Oh. Thank you very much,” she says politely, taking them. Her hair looks like maybe she braided it once about a month ago and hasn’t brushed or redone it since; her lucky flowers are dead, the petals turned to dust, crumpled in Jester’s hair, crumbs on her pillow this morning.

“No problem!” Jester’s fingers twitch. She kinda wants to fix Nott’s hair for her. Take a brush to it and make sure the flowers are perfect.

Nott holds the blossoms, sniffs them dubiously. “They’re lovely, thank you,” she says, her voice soft and scratchy.

“Well, it’s because you let me borrow yours. And they got a _little_ fucked up.”

“They’re only flowers. What matters is that they helped.” Nott tucks a sprig up behind her ear. They’re yellow, so they kind of go with the green, but she looks weirdly old and tired, and Jester really wants to hug her all at once.

“Thank you,” she says, her fingers cold. Numb. “For letting me have your lucky flowers.”

“No problem. You would have done the same for me.” Nott smiles toothily. Jester tries to smile back, looks down at the deck.

“Here,” Nott says. Jester looks back up; Nott has taken the flowers back out of her hair. “Let’s split them. They’ll look way cuter on you than on me, anyway, Jessie.”

“Okay.” She watches as Nott divides the springs up evenly, with precise movements. She sits down on the deck, so that they’re more at eye level. The wood warm and worn under her, against her fingertips. “Hey, Nott?”

“Uh-huh?” Nott is still messing with the flowers, taking her time.

“Yesterday… really sucked.”

Nott’s quiet, and Jester watches her cut the flowers at the stems, lace them together in a chain. “Yeah,” she says finally. “I mean, I don’t think _we_ did anything wrong. Or Caleb.” Jester smiles. “But yeah, it kind of was just — _super_ shitty. Here ya go,” Nott says brightly.

It’s barely the size of her hands in a circle, but it’s a crown of wildflowers. Nott sized, not Jester sized, but the little goblin looks uncharacteristically proud of herself. Jester picks up the crown and lays it carefully between her horns.

Nott looks pleased with herself. Puffed up and proud.

“Thank you, Nott.”

“No problem. I used to make these all the time,” Nott says happily, her eyes fixed on Jester’s hair.

“No, no, I mean — thank you. For … you know. Yesterday. For distracting the dragon.”

“Oh.” Nott’s quiet, her expression sobering. Jester expects she’s going to brush it off as an accident, pretend she didn’t do it on purpose — pretend that Jester hadn’t seen Nott looking at her, right at her, that Jester hadn’t been breathless and half in tears, pleading silently. That Jester hadn’t seen Nott look at the dragon and narrow her eyes and yell. _Before_ she began running.

Jester thinks that now she’s willing to argue with someone. Now.

Nott looks down at her bandaged hands. Her bloody sleeves. “You would have done it for anyone else.”

_But they didn’t do it for me._

She thinks it and feels ashamed of herself. Dirty and bad.

“But you did it. For me.”

Now Nott shrugs. “No big deal.”

Jester closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Takes the ugly thoughts and puts them away.

Takes the flowers from her hair, puts the flowers on Nott. “Oh, this fits you much better, it was too small, it’s perfect now,” Jester says happily. Nott blinks and flushes purple. Jester tucks the crown around her ears. “You’re so beautiful!”


End file.
